Wade Forster
The Aftermath
Album · Country · 2026 · Community Music
“Most of my weekends as a young fella when I was rodeoing full time, the minute the rodeo was over we’d have a gooseneck party when the bar shut,” Wade Forster tells Apple Music. That ritual was captured on the Queensland country singer’s 2025 album, Gooseneck Party. But for every up there must be a down, which is where his third full-length, The Aftermath, comes in.
“You wake up in the morning with a headache, you’ve got to clean up all these beer cans and load the horses up and drive about seven hours back home,” says Forster. “I’d always chuck on some nice easy listening music, and I thought, ‘I should do an album like that.’ I’m hoping [this record] is gonna help people get home.”
Populated by troubled characters, hard stories, and regret (“Make it look like an accident/I don’t want them to know the demons won,” sings Forster on “In the Meantime”), the singer-songwriter’s lyrics are dripping with detail, courtesy of an unlikely influence: Kendrick Lamar. “The way he can paint a story within four minutes, he’ll tell you everything that’s happened from start to finish,” he says. Here, Forster—who still rodeos part time when not touring—unveils the characters and stories of The Aftermath, track by track.
“How Alive (Poem)”
“Me and a former band member, we would look at each other just before we were about to walk on stage and go, ‘How lucky are we?’ When I wrote that poem it was second nature to talk about how lucky we are to live this life, and how lucky it is to be tired, and how lucky it is to wake up and feel like shit after a big day of work.”
“Anytime, Anywhere, Antoinette”
“It’s a real-life character. Her middle name’s Antoinette. She’s gone through some pretty hard times, and I’ve seen her in the good and the bad. Not long after COVID, I saw her at a rodeo and I was like, ‘You’re not doing too good.’ She’s doing a lot better now, but at the time I was pretty sure I was saying goodbye to her. I thought she was too far gone, as [can happen] with addiction.”
“In the Meantime”
“It’s about a girl running away on me, plain and simple. The fact that I wasn’t home didn’t help; I was always singing or doing something.”
“Love Crimes”
“I had a crush on a longtime friend; I talked to her every day. I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Like the chorus says, ‘If only you could see/All the heartache you put on me.’ But I couldn’t say it because I didn’t want to lose her as a friend. I had to swallow that and it hurt.”
“Breakaway Baby”
“There’s always been songs about bull riding, but there’s never been songs about the other events. I thought, ‘Why not talk about breakaway roping?’ I had this fairy-tale idea as a young fellow that I’d get married to a cowgirl and we’d just tour the circuit, but fairy tales don’t always happen. Honestly, after dealing with a few breakaway ropers, my sister included, I’m pretty happy I don’t have one.”
“Heaven ’57”
“One of my mates won heaps of money on a pokie [slot machine] when we were about 18, 19, and just starting rodeoing. We’re living in swags and cars and really roughing it, and he bought a caravan. Me and my mates were cheeky, saying he should get ‘Heaven ’57’ on the back, like you’re a grey nomad. Because they all had the name of their caravan when you passed them on the road.”
“October” (with Ellis Undercover)
“I met Ellis Undercover at the Academy of Country Music. She told me about how she spent time working in a prison and ended up falling in love with a dude who had previously gone to jail. And it was a bit conflicting for her.”
“Burn”
“One of my favorite TV shows when I was a young man was Sons of Anarchy. I started watching it again, and the main character, Jax, his first wife is called Wendy and she runs off the rails. Recovering addict, relapses. I just remember watching that first episode and I could hear a melody in my head. It’s literally my take on the Jax and Wendy story.”
“You’re the Only Reason”
“I fell in love with this girl. It seemed like every time I got closer to her, the further away she got. It almost felt like a cat-and-mouse chase the whole time. I had a bottle of her perfume in my car because she told me my car stunk, and I remember for ages my car smelled like her perfume. So I wrote that line: ‘Your goddamn perfume hit me like a truck.’”
“Strange”
“A lot of cowboys are addicted to girls with piercings or tattoos. I ran into a girl once and got lucky, took her home, and she had nipple piercings. This line popped into my head, ‘she tastes like keys,’ because of the metal. She threw all my shit out on the lawn one night in a bit of a fight. I remember she told me I had to change. I said, ‘No, I’m my own person. I don’t need to change for anybody.’”
“You wake up in the morning with a headache, you’ve got to clean up all these beer cans and load the horses up and drive about seven hours back home,” says Forster. “I’d always chuck on some nice easy listening music, and I thought, ‘I should do an album like that.’ I’m hoping [this record] is gonna help people get home.”
Populated by troubled characters, hard stories, and regret (“Make it look like an accident/I don’t want them to know the demons won,” sings Forster on “In the Meantime”), the singer-songwriter’s lyrics are dripping with detail, courtesy of an unlikely influence: Kendrick Lamar. “The way he can paint a story within four minutes, he’ll tell you everything that’s happened from start to finish,” he says. Here, Forster—who still rodeos part time when not touring—unveils the characters and stories of The Aftermath, track by track.
“How Alive (Poem)”
“Me and a former band member, we would look at each other just before we were about to walk on stage and go, ‘How lucky are we?’ When I wrote that poem it was second nature to talk about how lucky we are to live this life, and how lucky it is to be tired, and how lucky it is to wake up and feel like shit after a big day of work.”
“Anytime, Anywhere, Antoinette”
“It’s a real-life character. Her middle name’s Antoinette. She’s gone through some pretty hard times, and I’ve seen her in the good and the bad. Not long after COVID, I saw her at a rodeo and I was like, ‘You’re not doing too good.’ She’s doing a lot better now, but at the time I was pretty sure I was saying goodbye to her. I thought she was too far gone, as [can happen] with addiction.”
“In the Meantime”
“It’s about a girl running away on me, plain and simple. The fact that I wasn’t home didn’t help; I was always singing or doing something.”
“Love Crimes”
“I had a crush on a longtime friend; I talked to her every day. I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Like the chorus says, ‘If only you could see/All the heartache you put on me.’ But I couldn’t say it because I didn’t want to lose her as a friend. I had to swallow that and it hurt.”
“Breakaway Baby”
“There’s always been songs about bull riding, but there’s never been songs about the other events. I thought, ‘Why not talk about breakaway roping?’ I had this fairy-tale idea as a young fellow that I’d get married to a cowgirl and we’d just tour the circuit, but fairy tales don’t always happen. Honestly, after dealing with a few breakaway ropers, my sister included, I’m pretty happy I don’t have one.”
“Heaven ’57”
“One of my mates won heaps of money on a pokie [slot machine] when we were about 18, 19, and just starting rodeoing. We’re living in swags and cars and really roughing it, and he bought a caravan. Me and my mates were cheeky, saying he should get ‘Heaven ’57’ on the back, like you’re a grey nomad. Because they all had the name of their caravan when you passed them on the road.”
“October” (with Ellis Undercover)
“I met Ellis Undercover at the Academy of Country Music. She told me about how she spent time working in a prison and ended up falling in love with a dude who had previously gone to jail. And it was a bit conflicting for her.”
“Burn”
“One of my favorite TV shows when I was a young man was Sons of Anarchy. I started watching it again, and the main character, Jax, his first wife is called Wendy and she runs off the rails. Recovering addict, relapses. I just remember watching that first episode and I could hear a melody in my head. It’s literally my take on the Jax and Wendy story.”
“You’re the Only Reason”
“I fell in love with this girl. It seemed like every time I got closer to her, the further away she got. It almost felt like a cat-and-mouse chase the whole time. I had a bottle of her perfume in my car because she told me my car stunk, and I remember for ages my car smelled like her perfume. So I wrote that line: ‘Your goddamn perfume hit me like a truck.’”
“Strange”
“A lot of cowboys are addicted to girls with piercings or tattoos. I ran into a girl once and got lucky, took her home, and she had nipple piercings. This line popped into my head, ‘she tastes like keys,’ because of the metal. She threw all my shit out on the lawn one night in a bit of a fight. I remember she told me I had to change. I said, ‘No, I’m my own person. I don’t need to change for anybody.’”
The Aftermath
Wade Forster
“Most of my weekends as a young fella when I was rodeoing full time, the minute the rodeo was over we’d have a gooseneck party when the bar shut,” Wade Forster tells Apple Music. That ritual was captured on the Queensland country singer’s 2025 album, Gooseneck Party. But for every up there must be a down, which is where his third full-length, The Aftermath, comes in.
“You wake up in the morning with a headache, you’ve got to clean up all these beer cans and load the horses up and drive about seven hours back home,” says Forster. “I’d always chuck on some nice easy listening music, and I thought, ‘I should do an album like that.’ I’m hoping [this record] is gonna help people get home.”
Populated by troubled characters, hard stories, and regret (“Make it look like an accident/I don’t want them to know the demons won,” sings Forster on “In the Meantime”), the singer-songwriter’s lyrics are dripping with detail, courtesy of an unlikely influence: Kendrick Lamar. “The way he can paint a story within four minutes, he’ll tell you everything that’s happened from start to finish,” he says. Here, Forster—who still rodeos part time when not touring—unveils the characters and stories of The Aftermath, track by track.
“How Alive (Poem)”
“Me and a former band member, we would look at each other just before we were about to walk on stage and go, ‘How lucky are we?’ When I wrote that poem it was second nature to talk about how lucky we are to live this life, and how lucky it is to be tired, and how lucky it is to wake up and feel like shit after a big day of work.”
“Anytime, Anywhere, Antoinette”
“It’s a real-life character. Her middle name’s Antoinette. She’s gone through some pretty hard times, and I’ve seen her in the good and the bad. Not long after COVID, I saw her at a rodeo and I was like, ‘You’re not doing too good.’ She’s doing a lot better now, but at the time I was pretty sure I was saying goodbye to her. I thought she was too far gone, as [can happen] with addiction.”
“In the Meantime”
“It’s about a girl running away on me, plain and simple. The fact that I wasn’t home didn’t help; I was always singing or doing something.”
“Love Crimes”
“I had a crush on a longtime friend; I talked to her every day. I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Like the chorus says, ‘If only you could see/All the heartache you put on me.’ But I couldn’t say it because I didn’t want to lose her as a friend. I had to swallow that and it hurt.”
“Breakaway Baby”
“There’s always been songs about bull riding, but there’s never been songs about the other events. I thought, ‘Why not talk about breakaway roping?’ I had this fairy-tale idea as a young fellow that I’d get married to a cowgirl and we’d just tour the circuit, but fairy tales don’t always happen. Honestly, after dealing with a few breakaway ropers, my sister included, I’m pretty happy I don’t have one.”
“Heaven ’57”
“One of my mates won heaps of money on a pokie [slot machine] when we were about 18, 19, and just starting rodeoing. We’re living in swags and cars and really roughing it, and he bought a caravan. Me and my mates were cheeky, saying he should get ‘Heaven ’57’ on the back, like you’re a grey nomad. Because they all had the name of their caravan when you passed them on the road.”
“October” (with Ellis Undercover)
“I met Ellis Undercover at the Academy of Country Music. She told me about how she spent time working in a prison and ended up falling in love with a dude who had previously gone to jail. And it was a bit conflicting for her.”
“Burn”
“One of my favorite TV shows when I was a young man was Sons of Anarchy. I started watching it again, and the main character, Jax, his first wife is called Wendy and she runs off the rails. Recovering addict, relapses. I just remember watching that first episode and I could hear a melody in my head. It’s literally my take on the Jax and Wendy story.”
“You’re the Only Reason”
“I fell in love with this girl. It seemed like every time I got closer to her, the further away she got. It almost felt like a cat-and-mouse chase the whole time. I had a bottle of her perfume in my car because she told me my car stunk, and I remember for ages my car smelled like her perfume. So I wrote that line: ‘Your goddamn perfume hit me like a truck.’”
“Strange”
“A lot of cowboys are addicted to girls with piercings or tattoos. I ran into a girl once and got lucky, took her home, and she had nipple piercings. This line popped into my head, ‘she tastes like keys,’ because of the metal. She threw all my shit out on the lawn one night in a bit of a fight. I remember she told me I had to change. I said, ‘No, I’m my own person. I don’t need to change for anybody.’”
“You wake up in the morning with a headache, you’ve got to clean up all these beer cans and load the horses up and drive about seven hours back home,” says Forster. “I’d always chuck on some nice easy listening music, and I thought, ‘I should do an album like that.’ I’m hoping [this record] is gonna help people get home.”
Populated by troubled characters, hard stories, and regret (“Make it look like an accident/I don’t want them to know the demons won,” sings Forster on “In the Meantime”), the singer-songwriter’s lyrics are dripping with detail, courtesy of an unlikely influence: Kendrick Lamar. “The way he can paint a story within four minutes, he’ll tell you everything that’s happened from start to finish,” he says. Here, Forster—who still rodeos part time when not touring—unveils the characters and stories of The Aftermath, track by track.
“How Alive (Poem)”
“Me and a former band member, we would look at each other just before we were about to walk on stage and go, ‘How lucky are we?’ When I wrote that poem it was second nature to talk about how lucky we are to live this life, and how lucky it is to be tired, and how lucky it is to wake up and feel like shit after a big day of work.”
“Anytime, Anywhere, Antoinette”
“It’s a real-life character. Her middle name’s Antoinette. She’s gone through some pretty hard times, and I’ve seen her in the good and the bad. Not long after COVID, I saw her at a rodeo and I was like, ‘You’re not doing too good.’ She’s doing a lot better now, but at the time I was pretty sure I was saying goodbye to her. I thought she was too far gone, as [can happen] with addiction.”
“In the Meantime”
“It’s about a girl running away on me, plain and simple. The fact that I wasn’t home didn’t help; I was always singing or doing something.”
“Love Crimes”
“I had a crush on a longtime friend; I talked to her every day. I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Like the chorus says, ‘If only you could see/All the heartache you put on me.’ But I couldn’t say it because I didn’t want to lose her as a friend. I had to swallow that and it hurt.”
“Breakaway Baby”
“There’s always been songs about bull riding, but there’s never been songs about the other events. I thought, ‘Why not talk about breakaway roping?’ I had this fairy-tale idea as a young fellow that I’d get married to a cowgirl and we’d just tour the circuit, but fairy tales don’t always happen. Honestly, after dealing with a few breakaway ropers, my sister included, I’m pretty happy I don’t have one.”
“Heaven ’57”
“One of my mates won heaps of money on a pokie [slot machine] when we were about 18, 19, and just starting rodeoing. We’re living in swags and cars and really roughing it, and he bought a caravan. Me and my mates were cheeky, saying he should get ‘Heaven ’57’ on the back, like you’re a grey nomad. Because they all had the name of their caravan when you passed them on the road.”
“October” (with Ellis Undercover)
“I met Ellis Undercover at the Academy of Country Music. She told me about how she spent time working in a prison and ended up falling in love with a dude who had previously gone to jail. And it was a bit conflicting for her.”
“Burn”
“One of my favorite TV shows when I was a young man was Sons of Anarchy. I started watching it again, and the main character, Jax, his first wife is called Wendy and she runs off the rails. Recovering addict, relapses. I just remember watching that first episode and I could hear a melody in my head. It’s literally my take on the Jax and Wendy story.”
“You’re the Only Reason”
“I fell in love with this girl. It seemed like every time I got closer to her, the further away she got. It almost felt like a cat-and-mouse chase the whole time. I had a bottle of her perfume in my car because she told me my car stunk, and I remember for ages my car smelled like her perfume. So I wrote that line: ‘Your goddamn perfume hit me like a truck.’”
“Strange”
“A lot of cowboys are addicted to girls with piercings or tattoos. I ran into a girl once and got lucky, took her home, and she had nipple piercings. This line popped into my head, ‘she tastes like keys,’ because of the metal. She threw all my shit out on the lawn one night in a bit of a fight. I remember she told me I had to change. I said, ‘No, I’m my own person. I don’t need to change for anybody.’”
